US-China trade face-off: Prioritize the internet and digital trade by American Enterprise Institute

My AEI colleague Derek Scissors recently posited that for various reasons, the Trump administration’s announced intention to “sanction” China is likely to result in a “fair amount of sound and fury” without real economic results. Scissors and others have pointed to the administration’s foolhardy goal of linking US trade policy to changes in the US trade balance. There are also the misguided actions to protect washing machines and solar panels (which actually aids a Chinese-owned company) and the decisions to coddle yesterday’s industries: steel and aluminum. The upcoming steel and aluminum actions seem almost certainly to fail to achieve the intended results while introducing the dangerous precedent of invoking national security as the rationale for protection. In crafting a response to Beijing’s predatory regime, precision should replace flailing scattershot.